U.S. Team Needs a Kick in Its World Cup Roster
In the aftermath of the “Debacle in Dortmund,” U.S. Coach Bruce Arena at least has a much better idea of what dead wood needs to be trimmed from the World Cup tree.
Goodbye, Brian Ching. Farewell, Chris Klein. See you, Kerry Zavagnin.
Gregg Berhalter, meanwhile, hangs on by his fingernails, but even that tenuous grip might break loose when the final cut is made.
To his credit, Arena took some of the blame for the U.S. squad’s dismal 4-1 loss to Germany on Wednesday rather than leaving his players to shoulder the entire load.
“It wasn’t the right time for us to play that game,” he said. “I should have been a little bit stronger in saying [that]. For that part, I blame myself. I didn’t do a good job in terms of having our team prepared.
“But that’s a mistake coaches make. I scheduled that game at a time that probably wasn’t right for us. However, we learned from it. There are a lot of positive things that came out of it.
“We were great guests, and when we come back here in June we hope to not be very nice guests and to be a little bit more rude in our approach on the field and a little bit better.”
To do that, almost the entire starting roster will have to change. Goalkeeper Kasey Keller, right back Steve Cherundolo and midfielder Pablo Mastroeni could be the lone holdovers when the U.S. opens World Cup play against the Czech Republic in Gelsenkirchen on June 12.
Those three, plus midfielder Bobby Convey, were the bright spots for the U.S., with Convey’s willingness to run at opponents and beat them on the dribble particularly impressive.
Oddly, Arena was restrained in his praise of Convey, who Saturday was guaranteed to become a Premier League player next season, along with American teammate Marcus Hahnemann, when their club team, Reading, clinched promotion in England. It took Reading 135 years to reach the top rung of English soccer.
“Bobby had a solid game,” Arena said. “I thought he was fine in the counterattack aspect of the game. He’s still a young player. I thought defensively he didn’t do particularly well the entire night. The German right back, Arne Friedrich, had a good match and was dangerous coming forward. I thought he outplayed Bobby.”
On paper, the U.S. should outplay its final four opponents before the World Cup. For some reason -- supposedly the unwillingness of stronger, World Cup-bound teams to come to these shores in May -- the Americans have it easy for the next two months.
They play Jamaica in Cary, N.C., on April 11 in a match that is more a thank you to Cary for hosting the team’s camp than a meaningful sporting event. After that there is Morocco in Nashville on May 23, Venezuela in Cleveland on May 26 and Latvia in East Hartford, Conn., on May 28.
Arena said that he would “identify a final pool of players, probably 30 to 33 players,” after the Jamaica match and that he would announce the final 23-man roster “around May 1.”
It is difficult to see just what advantage comes from playing four feeble opponents in the final run-in to the June 9-July 9 tournament. None are anywhere near as strong as the Czechs or the Italians, the second U.S. opponent on June 17 in Kaiserslautern.
Certainly, four victories in a row would boost confidence after the Dortmund downturn, but not among the veterans, who know that only the games in June matter.
Mexico has provided a better example. It is traveling to Europe in late May, and will play both France in Paris and the Netherlands in Eindhoven as part of its final preparations.
Chances are Coach Ricardo Lavolpe’s team will lose both matches. But the players will have been toughened before the big event, and Angola, Iran and Portugal thus will seem, and indeed will be, much less intimidating foes compared to the French and Dutch.
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Elsewhere on the World Cup front....
Germany used Wednesday’s game to test World Cup security procedures and no fewer than 17 police vehicles, including 13 cars and vans and four motorcycles, were used to escort the U.S. team bus from the team hotel in Bochum to the stadium in Dortmund. Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defense has authorized the mobilization of up to 7,000 soldiers in the event of a terrorist threat or other emergency at the tournament.
Chivas USA defender Claudio Suarez, who is second in the world in international career appearances with 173, has been called in by Mexico for Wednesday’s World Cup warmup game against fellow finalist Paraguay in Chicago. Lavolpe again has excluded forward Cuauhtemoc Blanco, raising doubts that he will be on the final roster, and has dropped Jesus Arellano, who has criticized team selection.
Dutch fans are angry at the shortage of tickets to see their team play and even angrier at the prices those tickets are being offered for on the Internet. Tickets with a face value of $60 are being offered for more than $1,300, according to the Dutch news agency ANP.
Czech forward Jan Koller, the 6-foot-6 beanpole who has scored 40 goals in 66 internationals, has reiterated his belief that he will have recovered from left knee surgery in time to take part in the World Cup. Czech Coach Karel Bruckner met with Koller in Dortmund while scouting the Germany-U.S. match.
Berlin, where the final will be played July 9, plans to construct a scaled-down model of 66,000-seat Olympic Stadium on the grass in front of the Reichstag parliament building. The replica will hold about 10,000 fans and all 64 matches will be shown there on giant screens. Concerts will take place on one-game days. Hamburg has a fan zone but also is building a special jail to hold “in custody” as many as 150 hooligans for up to two weeks if necessary.
Argentina, wracked by injuries in recent months, is on the mend. Forward Carlos Tevez’s twisted knee has healed. Midfielder Javier Mascherano has recovered from a stress fracture that sidelined him for six months. Defender Roberto Ayala is back after knee surgery in February, defender Gabriel Heinze has started training again, and forward Lionel Messi is progressing well after a muscle tear, team doctors said.
